Elmore Leonard has died

[talisman]

Damn. And if you don't know who he is, I guarantee you have seen something he has written at some point in your life. He was prolific as hell. Pretty much the granddaddy of the modern crime novel.



Elmore Leonard, the writer behind "Get Shorty," "Justified" and "3:10 to Yuma," has died.

Leonard had suffered a stroke three weeks ago, and passed away in his Detroit home Tuesday. He had lived in the city since 1934.

Dozens of Leonard's novels and short stories have been adapted into movies, including "Out of Sight," "Hombre" and "Be Cool." He had been called the "Dickens of Detroit" for his prolific writing career.

The crew of “Justified,” the F/X series based upon his novella “Fire in the Hole,” held Leonard in such high regard that they wore “WWED” bracelets -- “What would Elmore do?

Elmore's researcher broke the news on the author's Facebook page, writing, "The post I dreaded to write, and you dreaded to read. Elmore passed away at 7:15 this morning from complications from his stroke. He was at home surrounded by his loving family."



Read more: http://www.upi.com/blog/2013/08/20/E...#ixzz2cWQz1KpR

[helosailor]

Dammit. He left us with a great legacy though.
Here's an interesting read about him:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...-crime-novels/

How Elmore Leonard wrote all his books
By Brad Plumer, Published: August 20 at 10:39


You can read his full obituary here, but also check out this fun tidbit from a 2008 Washington Post profile on how Leonard wrote his more than 40 best-selling books, from “Get Shorty” to “La Brava” to “Three-Ten to Yuma”:
He still writes as he always has, from 9 to 6, on an unlined yellow pad, then typing up a scene when he likes it. He never has an outline. He thinks of, say, “two guys in a room, talking,” usually about some criminal endeavor, and lets them “audition” for leading roles. He shapes them by intense research — in 1978, he hung out with the Detroit police’s homicide squad, an experience that shaped the rest of his writing — and then lets them wander deeper into trouble. If any passage sounds like “writing,” he rewrites it. This nets two to four pages a day. The next morning, he’ll read over those pages and “add cigarettes and drinks and things like that” and press forward.
He is not obsessed by crime, says he doesn’t have an opinion about crime in America. Maid theft notwithstanding, he has almost no life experience with it.
Sutter’s research fills a box for each book. What cops do each day, books on prison culture and slang. The boxes are kept in the basement. Inside, there’s a regular schoolboy’s notebook, 80 pages. It’s the “skinny” for each book, or his essential notes. These are filled with possible character names, addresses of banks that get robbed, snippets of dialogue, and facts like the population of Miami and the number of autopsies performed each year in Detroit.
Back in 2001, Leonard laid out his 10 rules for good writing in the New York Times. The basic precepts are below, though you should read the piece for a fuller explanation:
1. Never open a book with weather.
2. Avoid prologues.
3. Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue.
4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb “said” … he admonished gravely.
5. Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.
6. Never use the words “suddenly” or “all hell broke loose.”
7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
9. Don’t go into great detail describing places and things.
10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.

[01vnms4v]

Lived a good life. RIP!

[VaderTT]

Damn that sucks!